Harvick was plain spoken after the race. He said what we all know to be true: NASCAR throws the cautions when they please, for whatever reason they please. And often, it's to bunch up the field and make a dash for the end. Harvick got screwed, his car was utterly dominant until forced to do restarts on old tires at the end.

Click to expand...

You guys did see that chunk of something they picked up right? It had to be removed from the track or Danica would run right over it.

Harvick was plain spoken after the race. He said what we all know to be true: NASCAR throws the cautions when they please, for whatever reason they please. And often, it's to bunch up the field and make a dash for the end. Harvick got screwed, his car was utterly dominant until forced to do restarts on old tires at the end.

Click to expand...

Which is why I don't watch that crap. A sanctioning body which overtly alters the course of a race for "entertainment" purposes loses all credibility, in my mind. When the "show" becomes more important than the integrity of the competition itself, they have lost any relevance.

The fact that they are still so heavily sponsored by American business interests speaks volumnes about this country, big business and its citizens.

Which is why I don't watch that crap. A sanctioning body which overtly alters the course of a race for "entertainment" purposes loses all credibility, in my mind. When the "show" becomes more important than the integrity of the competition itself, they have lost any relevance.

Click to expand...

You're not paying attention, the caution was for a chunk of aluminum that could hurt a driver or fan:

Kevin Harvick was angry  understandably so  after a late debris caution in Saturday night's Nationwide Series race at Atlanta benefited two of his competitors and ultimately may have cost him the win.

Due to the timing of the caution  which fell at the end of green-flag pit stops  two drivers were able to pit for fresher tires than Harvick. One of those drivers, Brad Keselowski, helped push eventual race winner Ricky Stenhouse Jr. past Harvick.

Around the time of the debris caution, ESPN showed viewers at home  and on Sprint Vision screens at the track  an in-car video of Keselowski throwing a water bottle out of his window during the green flag. While that's a common practice for drivers, it led many viewers to believe the caution was connected to the water bottle based on the TV images.

Even Harvick's team thought the water bottle was the "debris" which brought out the yellow. Harvick was told about the water bottle toss while still in the car, and it infuriated him  especially when Keselowski wasn't penalized for it.

But as it turned out, he and his team had the wrong information. Keselowski did throw a water bottle out the window, but that didn't have anything to do with the yellow flag.

"The debris TV showed first was a water bottle, which is not why we threw the caution," NASCAR vice president of competition Robin Pemberton said after the race. "There was a piece of aluminum up there...some debris up on the outside getting into Turn 1. While the caution was out, we picked up the water bottle also."

ESPN later showed a worker picking up the aluminum piece after the water bottle incident. Pemberton said drivers are allowed to toss plastic water bottles out of the window during the race and that it is a common practice.

"We understand that they do (throw bottles)," Pemberton said. "Normally, they'll wind up falling to the inside of the track or the apron or something like that. Occasionally, we've seen in past years where they throw out a big drink bottle and we can't tell what it is (and it prompts a caution), but that's been awhile. We don't hit anybody (with a penalty) for throwing a plastic water bottle out."

Harvick, though, did not receive that explanation immediately after the race. Thinking the water bottle cost him the race, he walked from his car to where Keselowski's No. 22 was parked on pit road and confronted the driver for a cheap move.

Keselowski looked surprised and said he had no clue what Harvick was talking about, because it was news to him that a water bottle had caused the caution. The Penske Racing driver later said he was confused because he threw the bottle out of the window 15 or 20 laps before the caution, and that it was one of three bottles he tossed during the race.

But Harvick, who had one of the most dominant cars in any series this season, was in no mood to let the water bottle incident go when he visited the media center  and sat right next to Keselowski.

"It's pretty obvious," Harvick said. "They put it on TV and showed it, and the caution came out the same lap. He told me after the race: 'You've never thrown a water bottle out?' You know what that means.

"He told me it was intentional. So it is what it is."

Then Harvick turned to Keselowski.

"Sleep good," he said sarcastically. On his way out of the media center, Harvick lightly smacked Keselowski's cheek twice.

For his part, Keselowski said he was "caught off guard" by the focus on the water bottle because he did not believe it was connected to the caution. The driver said all drivers throw bottles and helmet visor tear-offs out of their cars.

Keselowski said Harvick was just frustrated, and he sympathized with the Richard Childress Racing veteran.

"Sometimes in racing, you do everything right and it just doesn't work out," he said. "If you're not mad about it, you're not a racer. So how can I sit here and bash Kevin? Kevin is a racer, and he had the best car and didn't win. If he wasn't mad as hell, I would personally be mad at him, because that's his job. That's why he's a great racer.

"So just give him some time. He'll figure out the situation with NASCAR. Cooler heads will prevail, and that's just the way it is."

I agree that the yellows last too long. I also saw the debris on TV last night and it was a big enough chunk of metal that I would have thrown the yellow myself. Maybe Nascar shouldn't allow clapped out cars back on the track after the halfway point?

I liked that Kahne just parked it after too many mistakes last night to be competitive any longer.

"I'm just mad at myself right now," Gordon said, kicking himself for not doing more on the final two laps. "I don't know, I guess I'm just getting soft in my old age. I'm too nice because ... 15 years ago, I would have just moved him right up the racetrack. I don't know why I didn't do that. I thought I could get to his quarter panel and slow him down and stay there. But [when] I got there, I just carried too much speed into [Turn] 3, and it pushed up the racetrack."

That was exciting! I like Gordon, so his rush to secure a spot in the Chase was great to watch. He just kept on moving up. I kinda like Kyle, so a wee bit sorry to see him out. Nice of Joe Gibbs to go to his window as soon as the car stopped. Prolly told him to keep his yap shut.

That was exciting! I like Gordon, so his rush to secure a spot in the Chase was great to watch. He just kept on moving up. I kinda like Kyle, so a wee bit sorry to see him out. Nice of Joe Gibbs to go to his window as soon as the car stopped. Prolly told him to keep his yap shut.

Edit: Hah, I was right! Kyle said Joe told him "to handle it right."

Click to expand...

That was great, I wish Gordon would step it up and do that every weekend!!

Kyle should have handled it right and punched his rear tire changer right in the face.

"I have to say most of the drivers were willing to at least get in the car and put it on," Downing said. "They were polite. We had a funny incident there. At one point, we went into the NASCAR trailer. Mike Helton was in there and we were going to talk about it. It was going to be a discussion, no big deal.

"For some reason, Earnhardt came in. He sat down with a big grin on his face and we were ushered out right away. He was not interested in it. He wasn't going to talk about it. He wasn't going to spend any time. Really, he was the only driver that I didn't get around to."

When Earnhardt died of a basilar skull fracture at Daytona six months later -- the fourth such fatality over a span of less than a year -- drivers immediately lined up at Downing's door. Since then -- and with the introduction of SAFER barriers and a redesigned chassis -- the rate of serious head and neck injuries in NASCAR has declined sharply."

I think that without the noose, Danica would be dead after all her crashing this year. I'm still holding out hope for her career because that Jeff Gordon guy was known for wadding up race cars before he really took off as a good race car driver.

It wouldn't surprise me if someday baseball pitchers wear helmets, hockey players have face cages like those in college and NFL helmets are radically redesigned.

Actually, my idea for a football helmet is based on race car wrecks. Cars disperse a lot of their energy in a wreck when their parts fly off. That spray of material helps lessen the energy of the impact on the driver. I'm thinking football helmets should somehow do the same thing in a concussion-inducing impact: parts should fly off, reducing the amount of energy that is ultimately going to propel the brain into the side of the player's cranium.